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Cars are one of the major contributors to the greenhouse effect. The carbon gases that they emit are the ones which can trap the heat within the earth’s atmosphere, thereby causing the process of global warming to accelerate. But there is a car which can help solve this problem.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles are considered to be the future of the automobile industry. PHEV’s are vehicles that can run on electricity. To recharge them, you only need to ‘plug’ them into an electrical source such as the electric sockets found in your homes.
The estimated cost of the electricity used to power these vehicles is said to be one-fourth of the cost of gasoline, making it considerably cheaper. These cars get their power from renewable energy sources. You won’t have to be dependent on petroleum or fossil fuel.
These cars just need to be plugged into any electrical source so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see stations for these types of cars that use solar energy. Also, because they don’t need a lot of petroleum, the emission of greenhouse gasses will be significantly decreased.
But this is not to say that PHEV’s are completely independent from gasoline. A PHEV can run for a certain number of miles on electricity, but once it exceeds its limit, then the car will have to run on its gasoline reserve.
This shouldn’t be much of a problem though, especially if you only use your car for short distances and not on long trips. PHEV’s does have its disadvantages like the use of lithium battery packs and their impracticality, but that’s nothing that a few years of development can’t fix.
Google's Helping Hand
Sadly, PHEV’s are not yet commercialized, meaning, they have yet to come out into the market. However, Google, one of the biggest internet search giants, has announced its plan to give out millions of dollars in order to speed up the development of these outstanding vehicles.
So far, they have given out one million dollars to companies and people who can help speed up the marketing process. They have pledged to give another $10M, but they fear that this might not even be enough to get the operation going. Rumors say that bringing a PHEV into the market might cost hundreds of millions but that’s not to say that the producers aren’t thankful for Google’s help.
They say that they appreciate it because they need all the money they can get. Google confesses that their goal is not to get into the business of producing and developing cars but to speed up the development and the production through their investments.